


whispers in the dark

by theantepenultimateriddle



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: EPISODE 50 could have gone horribly wrong, F/F, Gen, suicide I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 22:33:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11610306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theantepenultimateriddle/pseuds/theantepenultimateriddle
Summary: Please help me please help me please help me please help me please please please God





	whispers in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> WELCOME TO MY HELL

Eiffel sticks the syringe in his arm and then it’s all happening too fast- him choking, fallen, writhing and foaming at the mouth, and Hera, telling you that this was the only way and that they had planned this together. “Two minutes before total loss of brain function,” she says, her voice too calm, too calm for what’s happening. Too calm for Eiffel dying right in front of her. “You need to tell me now, Captain. What did the aliens mean by “complete the process”?” she asks.

You choke back a sob. “I don’t know, dammit, I don’t know. Hera, just do something already, we’re losing him!” Eiffel’s thrashing is getting weaker, his skin is going grey, and you strain against your bonds, trying to get up and help, because you already know they aren’t coming just like they hadn’t before. But damn him, damn him to hell, he did a good job restraining you, and you can’t do anything but watch as the life starts to go out of him.

“What does it mean, Captain?” Hera asks, and you can hear the panic creeping into her voice now. “What does it mean? You need to tell me what it means!”

 _“I don’t know!”_ You yell at the ceiling, feeling the words tear your throat, ripping up your insides. Tears are collecting on your eyes, a liquid bubble in the microgravity that you can’t wipe away because he bound your _fucking hands_. “I don’t know, Hera, just get Minkowski, I can’t-”

Eiffel gives one last convulsive shudder and stops moving, and you scream. You can’t get up, you can’t do anything, you can’t _move_ as the friend you gave up your life for dies, and you scream, and scream, letting out the pain and the loss in a chest-bursting wail. When you run out of breath it peters off, leaving you gasping for air. Eiffel’s gone. He’s gone, and you did nothing, you couldn’t do anything-

Hera, when she speaks, sounds like a little girl just discovering how lost in these woods she really is. “No,” she says, quietly, then louder. “No, no, no no no no no,” but yes, yes yes yes he’s fucking dead and there’s nothing she can do about that now. “This was supposed to work,” she says. “Eiffel- Doug, please-” And then her voice shuts off, the whirr of the machinery shuts off, the lights in the room shut off, and you’re alone in the dark with his corpse.

You whisper Minkowski’s name into the pitch-black room like a prayer.

Everything is silent for a moment, and then you take a deep breath and call for her, your voice echoing off the walls of the med bay. “Minkowski! Commander Renée Minkowski, I-” you break off, and then say the words you hate most in the world. “Help me. I need you to help me. Just, please help me. Please, Minkowski, please-”

You can’t tell how long it is before you lose your voice, but it seems like hours, and hours more until a light flicks on in the hallway outside and Minkowski walks into the med bay and says your name. “Lovelace? I was looking for you- oh, dear lord.” She freezes at the sight of you and Eiffel’s body, and you see her silhouette reach up a hand to cover its mouth.

You speak hoarsely, half delirious and wracked with pain from being tied down and nausea from- from everything, from absolutely everything. “I’m sorry,” you say, your voice rasping and quiet and so so distant from your body and your mind. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. There was nothing I could do.”

She falters for a moment, then redoubles, bouncing back. “Hey,” she says, quiet, soothing. “Hang on. I’m going to get you out of there.” Her voice hardens. “And then you’re going to tell me what in the hell happened here.”

“I will,” you say, and you can hear the tears in your own voice. Your breath catches in your throat, and you can taste the bile rising in your mouth again. “Just help me.”

And she does, undoing your bonds with capable fingers, helping you up. You sit up and see Eiffel’s body full on for the first time, not a craned glimpse, and his rigor mortis stiffness even as he floats is too much for you. You vomit, right over the edge of the operating table, and even after Minkowski helps you up and you clean your mouth out you can still taste a bitterness under your tongue.

When you tell her what happens in clumsy, quiet sentences, barely able to make yourself heard, she holds you tight and you cry for the first time in too long. Her arms are warm and firm, and you want to tell her to let go of you because you’re like King Midas and everything you touch withers and dies. You want to tell her she needs to stop before you kill her too, but you’re selfish and a coward and you can’t say that to her, you can’t risk having the relative safety of her embrace taken away from you. And god help you, you know that she’s crying too, that you’re the life preserver she’s clutching, and you can’t take that one comfort away from her. So instead you sob into her uniform until your eyes are red and swollen and puffy, for once letting yourself feel vulnerable. And then you pull yourself up and look her in the eye, pretending not to notice the raw pain in her gaze. “We need to give him a funeral,” you say, and Minkowski nods.

You flush him out the airlock. It’s not what he would have wanted, but there’s nothing else you can do. And then you and Minkowski and- you don’t know if Hera’s really there any more, if she’s still present, if she’s still _sane_ , because you haven’t heard her speak in weeks- are all alone except for the two people who hate you most and the aliens who led you all into this dark place.

Minkowski sleeps in your room that night, and you watch her, and in the morning you can hear Eiffel’s voice. But it’s just an echo, and you know it, especially when he greets you with “Good morning, everyone, and welcome to day 1192.”

Day 1192, and only an infinity more left to go.


End file.
